Chapter 17 #2
“You look like someone just made you run stairs,” she said.
“I’ve had easier briefings,” he replied. “Fewer zeroes.”
“Are you freaking out?” she asked.
“A little,” he admitted. “Feels a lot like planning an op. Only this time, the worst possible outcome isn’t on the battlefield; it’s a foreclosure notice.”
She sat beside him and laced their fingers. “Hey. We went over the numbers three times with Jason. We’ll go over them again with the accountant. We’re not leaping blind.”
He glanced at her. “You’re not scared?”
“I’m terrified,” she said. “I’m just… more scared of going back to my tiny apartment and pretending I don’t know what this feels like. The building. The studio. You. So I’m choosing the fear that comes with possibility instead of the one that comes with being stuck.”
He stared at her for a long beat, something raw and grateful flickering in his eyes. “You keep doing that,” he said, “choosing hard things on purpose.”
“Trick I picked up,” she said lightly. “Grief had a lot of practice making choices for me. I’m trying to return the favor.”
He lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “Have I mentioned that I’m proud of you?”
“Once or twice,” she said. “Keep it up. It’s starting to sink in.”
His mouth curved. “We’ve got a few hours before we have to show our faces at the team thing tonight,” he said. “Dinner at the tent, sponsor pictures, all that fun stuff. Any plans for the immediate future?”
She glanced at the sketchbook. Then at him.
“Yeah,” she drawled. “I was thinking about starting the first piece for the Bryn series. While the building is still a skeleton in my head, I want to catch how it feels right now. And then later… I kind of want to lie in bed with my boyfriend and talk about absurd things like what color we’re painting the bathroom. ”
He smiled. “I’m available for both those tasks.”
“I thought you might be.”
She stood and opened the sketchbook, flipping to a fresh page. The pencil felt familiar between her fingers. Her heart kicked, not with the sharp panic that had become her normal companion, but with something steadier.
“Do you want me out of your hair while you draw?” he asked.
“I want you right there,” she said, nodding at the bed. “You can pretend to look at budget spreadsheets while I pretend not to be staring at your forearms every five minutes.”
“That’s a fair trade,” he said.
He picked up the folder and stretched out on the bed, back against the headboard, ankles crossed. The sight of him there, utterly at home, tightened something sweet in her chest.
She sat at the table and began to sketch.
The first lines were hesitant. The outline of a boot. A chipped mug. A section of wood floor with sunlight pouring over it. Not exact replicas of Bryn’s things, but echoes. Memories translated into shapes.
Hank’s low voice drifted over as he muttered to himself about square footage and estimated labor costs. It was oddly soothing, like the distant hum of a motor.
After a while, he set the papers aside. “You’re frowning,” he said.
“I’m thinking,” she replied without looking up.
“About?”
“How to make people feel like they know her,” she said. “Without ever seeing her face.”
“You already know how,” he said. “That’s what you did with those industrial waterfront pieces.”
She glanced back at him. “You saw those for all of ten minutes on my phone.”
“Long enough,” he said. “They made me feel things I didn’t want to admit to in public. This is going to do the same.”
Her chest squeezed. “You keep having more faith in me than I have in myself.”
“Occupational hazard,” he said. “I spent a lot of years betting on people’s potential. I’m not about to stop with you.”
She let the pencil still. “Come here,” she said.
He obeyed without question, setting the papers aside and crossing to her. She stood, tipped her head back, and kissed him.
Whatever patience they’d shown at the studio, they dropped it now.
He slid his hands to her hips, pulling her in; the contact sent a rush of heat through her. She opened to him, tasting coffee and something purely Hank.
“We should pace ourselves,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Why?” she asked. “I like this pace.”
He laughed softly, resigned and pleased. “Fair point.”
They moved together without spoken coordination, hands finding buttons and hems. The bed caught them when they toppled back; there was a lot of laughing and getting tangled in the comforter before it shifted into something slower.
Hank took his time; he always did. As if he were memorizing, mapping her with his hands, his mouth. He checked in with small touches and the way he watched her face, looking for every flicker of pleasure, every shadow of doubt.
She let herself be seen. That was the true leap, not the warehouse, not the business plan, but this. The way she let him touch the parts of her grief that still felt raw and jagged, even as he worshipped everything else.
When she came apart around him, it wasn’t fireworks and fanfare. It was a slow, deep wave that rolled through her, leaving her boneless and full. He followed with a quiet curse, burying his face in her neck, his body shuddering.
For a long time afterward, they lay in a tangle of limbs and sheets, breathing hard. The late afternoon light slanted across the floor, edging toward evening.
“If this is what post-race weekends look like now,” he said eventually, voice rough, “I’m never retiring.”
She laughed, stroking a hand down his back. “Pretty sure you can’t keep racing forever,” she said. “Your knees will mutiny.”
“Traitors,” he muttered. “Fine. I’ll run the shop and be your studio’s in-house mechanic. Hire a couple junior riders to do the dangerous stuff while I yell at them from the pit wall.”
“That sounds terrifying,” she said. “For them. Slightly hot for me.”
He lifted his head, eyebrow arched. “Slightly?”
“Moderately,” she amended. “Possibly extremely.”
He kissed her again, quick and affectionate this time, then rolled onto his back, dragging a hand over his face.
“Timeline-wise,” he said, “we’re looking at permits next week, contracts after that. If all goes well, we’re in construction within a month.”
“I’ll need to go back to Milwaukee,” she said. “Pack up my apartment. Figure out what to put in storage and what to bring here. Maybe help my parents shift some of Bryn’s things from altars to actual life. That’s not going to be easy.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “You don’t have to.”
“I know,” he said. “I want to. If I’m buying a building with you and using my power tools in your future studio, I’d like to see where you’ve been living. Meet your parents. Pay my respects to Bryn.”
Emotion punched through her chest, sharp and fierce. “You already did,” she said, voice thick. “When you pulled me out of that hotel room the first night and made me walk on the beach. She’d have liked you for that alone.”
“Then I want to go stand where she’s buried and tell her I’m going to keep trying,” he breathed. “If that’s okay with you.”
She pressed her face into his shoulder for a moment, hiding the sudden sting in her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s okay.”
He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. “We’ll figure the schedule out after Diaz gives us the all clear on your mystery sedan.”
“Awareness, not paranoia,” she reminded him.
He huffed. “You’re going to throw that back at me forever, aren’t you?”
“Forever’s a big word,” she said. “But it’s getting less scary.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Good.”
"We should also talk to a realtor and find a house."
He chuckled. "I've been thinking that too. I want to live with you. I want you to live with me."
She smiled softly as she stared at their joined hands. "I want that too."
Outside, the sounds of Copper Moon drifted up from the street. A distant motorcycle engine. Laughter from the boardwalk. The faint echo of someone calling out about fresh fish at a stall.
Inside, the room smelled like them: soap, sweat, hotel sheets, and something new that felt a lot like home.
Bree closed her eyes and let herself imagine it.
Not just this room, temporary and anonymous, but the upstairs of the warehouse with their life layered into it.
Paint-stained floors. The thump of tools downstairs.
Hank’s laughter slipping under the studio door.
Her parents sitting on a mismatched couch at an opening, pointing out details in the Bryn paintings to anyone who would listen.
The future wasn’t a cliff anymore.
It was a long, winding road, full of potholes and unexpected turns; she knew that. Some people out there didn’t like what they had done with Marcus and the nitrous kit. There were conversations ahead that would hurt.
But she wasn’t standing at the edge of nothing.
She was already walking.
“Hey,” Hank murmured. “You zoning out on me?”
“Just plotting,” she said.
“Anything I need to be worried about?”
“Only if you hate the idea of the studio bathroom being teal,” she said.
He groaned. “You’re going to turn my shop into an art installation.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll keep the flames on your logo.”
He laughed, the sound low and easy. “I look forward to the arguments.”
She smiled into his skin. “Me too.”
They lay there a little longer, letting the light change and the day shift around them. In a few hours, they’d pull on clean clothes and go be public faces again, shaking hands and taking pictures and pretending to be slightly more put together than they actually were.
For now, it was just the two of them, the echo of the future humming quietly between their heartbeats.